Neom confirmed the first phase of The Line was completed. The Hidden Marina as this segment of the giga project is called has been fully constructed. The structure stretches 2.5 kilometres and rising to 500 metres high, Hidden Marina will consist of three connected modules, designed to have the domestic amenities for over 200,00 residents to live there. According to Neom’s chief Development Officer Denis Hickey, the project’s built -up area will exceed 21 million square metres. The Line is being designed and constructed to tower above all other structures including Dubai’s Burj Khalifa. The Line will dominate the landscape of the area’s mountains, desert valleys, and the Red Sea. Designed to span 170-kilometres the Line is a space-efficient metropolis that will eventually accommodate 9 million people. The city will be powered entirely by renewable energy, with 95 % of the land dedicated to nature conservation.
Construction of the project in the north west of Saudi Arabia has so far cost more than $ 50 billion, according to the project’s deputy CEO Rayan Fayez. He was speaking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
The Line is one of the major elements of Neom, which is one of the world’s largest and most controversial developments. Phase one of the project is being designed by Austrian studio Delugan Meissl Associated Architects and global studio Gensler. Neom is one of 14 giga projects being developed in Saudi Arabia as part of the Saudi Vision 2030 plan to shift the country’s economy from a reliance on oil. At the end of last year, Neom’s CEO Nadhmi al-Nasr left the project amid reports of financial issues and migrant worker fatalities. Dezeen recently asked if it was time for architecture studios to walk away from the project, following mounting human rights concerns.
It followed reporting by the BBC alleging that Saudi forces permitted the use of lethal force to clear land for the project, with human rights organisation ALQST drawing attention to reports that three men forcibly evicted from the Neom site were sentenced to death in 2022.
Neom is well-known for being Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman AKA MBS’s signature giga project. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy where the king, Salman Bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud (MBS’s Father) has the final say. But age and dementia have taken its toll on the monarch’s health. MBS has been assuming more and more responsibilities -and power – on behalf of his ailing father. The Crown Prince is planning to use Neom – which consists of five regions: The Line, Oxagon, Sindalah, Trojena and Magna – to showcase the Saudi kingdom as a progressive centre of industry, science, technology and tourism. The stalling over bankruptcy and the migrant worker fatalities has marred the project’s daring nature as controversial and exposed the Saudi royal dictatorship as being more harsh than benevolent.
MBS maybe the most powerful man in the Kingdom but he has had little experience on how to steer his regime to a more stable and prosperous situation. Using brutality alone to motivate your people is not only bad press, it is an ill-effective method. Technology and modern media spread the news faster than authoritarian governments can hold it back. MBS still being young, inexperienced and somewhat insecure should relax his heavy-handed tactics.
However, in spite of the harsh and cruel repression Neom for better or worse is rising from the desert in all its glory.
Article written by:
Yacoob Cassim
Journalist at Radio Al Ansaar
